


The Shades of Pemberley

by havisham



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, POV Outsider, ToT: Monster Mash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-25 09:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12527744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: Lady Catherine was wrong, of course, the shades of PemberleyadoredElizabeth Bennet.





	The Shades of Pemberley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenellaevangela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/gifts).



One would never suppose, looking at the great house at Pemberley, that it was one of the most haunted places in England. No, such an appellation should properly go to some dour old fortress on the moors, haunted by ghosts and their owners’ discontent *. But indeed, dear reader, I tell you true -- Pemberley is haunted! 

I know this well, because I am one of the ghosts. 

Compared to some of the other inmates, I haven't been here long. In life, I was a fairly insignificant creature -- no money, no beauty, no personality -- all of that was my curse. I was only a poor cousin of the Darcys, and society took little notice of me. Perhaps Sir So-and-So deigned to seduce me, and maybe I was the friend of Lady This-and-That, whose name and notoriety have faded into the pages of history as such things are wont to do. 

I died quietly one day from a cough that had been plaguing me. I had done little to recommend me to Heaven, and not enough to condemn me to Hell, so when I woke from my long swoon, I was exactly where I had been before -- only now it seemed that all that was real and living took on the quality of ghosts. 

Then I met the real ghosts of Pemberley...

Ah but, I must stop there for you, kind friend, are not here to listen to me speak about myself. You are here because I, of all the shades of Pemberley, saw _her_ first. I spotted her wandering in the sculpture gallery, her fine, dark eyes wide with delight. Miss Elizabeth Bennet, as she was then, took everything in as if it was an oasis in the desert and she, a thirsting pilgrim. Oh, I know that later on she came to love Darcy and marry him, but believe me, she loved Pemberley first. 

And the feeling, it was mutual. Both of Fitzwilliam’s parents were pleased by the match -- after all, death had a way of showing the futility of riches and such. Their son -- such a dull, unpleasant boy that he was! -- seemed to bloom like a flower in Elizabeth’s presence, as did Georgiana. She was their sun on which their world turned. What an awful responsibility it must be -- I am glad no one ever saw me that way.

It took longer for the older generations of Darcys to warm to her -- when the happy couple returned from their long honeymoon in Europe, there was much gnashing of teeth and shaking of heads over Fitzwilliam’s choice. Wouldn't that sly minx, Caroline Bingley, have been a better choice? She had almost five-thousand a year, after all. (I did say that death showed the futility of riches, but that was not true for all.) 

Old Mad Darcy was angered that she was dark, rather than fair. The French interloper, Guillaume D’arcy, thought her pianoforte-playing was vile. Lead-Me-Not-To-Sinfulness Darcy -- the family’s singular Puritan zealot -- was affronted by her bared arms and her wide smiles. 

Little Charlie Darcy, the only spirit in the house that even I fear (he was murdered by a cruel guardian at the tender age of four -- thrown into raging fire and consumed -- and to hear his piteous cries in the dead of night would freeze the blood in your veins † ) -- said that he liked her, but _she_ never seemed to hear his cries. Lucky her! I would not sleep a wink if I did. 

“Sleep? Why are you talking of sleep, Anne?” giggled my companion, in my old life and in this one, Catherine (whose namesake and lesser rules Pemberley’s sister estate, Rosings, with an iron fist.) 

“What do you mean, Catherine,” I said, a shade impatiently. It annoyed me that Catherine should interfere with my story, as was often her habit. 

“I went into their bedroom the other day and I can tell you that they were not sleeping even a little,” she said, and then leaned in to whisper the rest of it into my ears. 

Well! I suppose some exceptions must be made for newlyweds, after all. 

Ah, they are newlyweds now, Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth, but life is short and death is long. One day they will both join us here, and though that day will be sad for those they leave behind, it would be a happy one for us. 

For as much as Elizabeth loves Pemberley, we love her so very much more. We will keep her forever under our shades -- ah, isn't that jolly? Perhaps if one of the servants will carelessly left a stair rod under the carpet ‡ and Elizabeth will come to us even sooner. 

How very fine that would be! 

**Author's Note:**

> Footnotes: 
> 
> * Such as _Wuthering Heights_ , of course. 
> 
> † Little Charlie's sad fate was shared by a gruesome ghost story whose name I can't remember now. 
> 
> Edit: a helpful reader pointed out that story is "How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery" by E.F. Benson, which can be read [here](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605171h.html#ch01). Read his other ghost stories as well -- he's amazing. 
> 
> ‡ A murder technique proposed by one M.R. James, who knew a thing or two about ghosts. (The story in question is "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral", which can be read [here.](http://www.thin-ghost.org/items/show/155))


End file.
